One Tear At A Time
by redhandedlittlemachine
Summary: Set six months after Never Forget You. Aria tries to relearn her life without Ezra. (Most-likely a) Oneshot.


_One Tear At A Time_

Harper pulls herself across the floor in an army crawl in front of Aria as her mother stares at her computer screen. Aria has been trying desperately to get back into her career as a photographer, but she's also pretty sure she's failing miserably at it. Granted, she's used her daughter as a guinea pig to pad her file in recent weeks along with a number of friends and family members-thank you Hardy for **finally** proposing-but she's not sure it'll do much to garner people's attention.

"Mmmma," Harper utters in her garbled baby-speak as she gives Aria a gummy grin. Aria grins back at her daughter, setting her computer down next to her.

"Momma sucks at her job."

On some level, Aria knows that's not entirely true. Before Ezra, she was doing pretty well with shooting opportunities, as well as just simply selling photos she'd had shown in several galleries in New England. But after Ezra's passing, her work came to a halt, and it took her four months to pick up her camera again. Even then, it was only because of Christmas and New Years, but it was enough for Aria's creativity to kick in again. Slowly but surely, she started taking more photos-mostly of Harper, and of her friends-and eventually she started feeling out the market.

She's had a rough climb to her current spot in the past few months. Most of the people she was shooting before losing Ezra gave her room to grieve when she didn't return calls for work opportunities. Of course, when they stopped coming to her for their photos, they also stopped spreading the word about her services. It made getting back in the game a little tough. Granted, she's been offered jobs since she picked up her camera again, but it's nothing compared to how it was before, and her friends telling people about her only gets her so far.

Harper whines where she's settled next to Aria, and Aria glances up at the time. She exhales a sigh before closing her laptop and placing it up on the counter before she stands up and then leans down to pick up her daughter. She walks over to the table and places Harper in her high chair before walking over to the sink and grabbing a fresh bottle from the drying rack.

As she fills the bottle with formula, her mind drifts to when Harper was first born. She spent years fully intending to be 'that mom' that put her child first in every way. She wanted to take time off to be with her baby, she wanted to breastfeed, and for a while she and Ezra even discussed a co-sleeping crib-that was quickly tossed out when Ezra showed her all the news articles about babies being suffocated from co-sleeping.

Even so, she wanted to be _that mom_. And then when Ezra's death came so suddenly, just getting out of bed became a chore. When Harper was born, she breastfed for the first few weeks, though mostly because she felt pressured into it. When she'd first given birth in the hospital, the nurses were all all over the subject, telling her about all the benefits of breast milk over formula. Of course, her biggest driving force was the colostrum-breast milk filled with antibodies and immune-system-boosting substances. For that reason alone, she forced herself to breastfeed the first week exclusively. After her daughter's age ticked into double digit days though-and her grief kicked into overdrive-she became less and less interested in it. Holding Harper for so long while she ate felt like a chore instead of a bonding experience. Most of those first few months, all she wanted to do was ignore everything and sleep.

Of course, hindsight is always better than foresight, and she wishes she could've found the strength to open her heart to her daughter sooner. Granted, she's bonded as tightly to Harper as much as humanly possible, but she wonders if continuing to breastfeed would've made them feel even closer. The fact that she doesn't-and never will-have a clear answer makes her wonder that much more.

Harper makes a sound behind her that can only be described as a loud chirp, and Aria shakes out of her reverie. She turns the water off, makes sure the bottle is filled to eight ounces, and then adds in the formula before putting the cap on. Afterwards, she shakes the bottle and then walks over to Harper and hands her daughter the bottle. The baby girl snatches it from her mother's hand and begins gulping it down.

.,.

_Love, like a dream, like you're never waking_

_Love, like your last, like the sky is falling_

_.,._

Aria drops Harper by Ella after school lets out-it's an early day for students in Rosewood, so Ella's agreed to let Aria go out and shoot while she spends a few hours with her granddaughter. Aria is only too grateful for it too because she's spent the last three and a half months juggling her responsibilities against whoever can babysit when. Hanna and Caleb are still living in LA for a few months, though Hanna's mentioned moving to New York once she graduates from FIDM to be closer, and Emily is in Seattle studying anatomy. She'd decided to go to school to become a doctor long before Ezra's passing; as she'd told the girls towards the end of their senior year, taking someone's life was hard to survive while keeping her sanity. The best she could think to do was help save others. Aria sometimes wishes Emily could've been there that day at the beach. But then, she wishes a lot of things about that day still.

Even so, with two of her best friends on the other side of the country, it leaves her short on child care. She's usually juggling Harper between Ella and Zack or Spencer and Hardy. She's only recently started speaking to her father again since the new year started, but she's not quite reached a point where she's sure she wants to leave Harper with him, though it's not because she doesn't trust him. She worries about the conversations that might come up in that situation.

She wanders through Rosewood at first, though it's a typical place for her to start. She normally finds herself beginning at one of the parks with two of her cameras-one being a Nikon digital, and the other being the vintage camera Ezra bought for her in her senior year. Her Nikon hangs from her shoulder, wrapped twice and tucked around the inside of her jacket because she's wary of someone snatching it, while Ezra's camera hangs from her neck. Things really get interesting when she stops for coffee-usually about halfway through her excursions-and she's juggling all three things while still shooting.

There's an upside to living in a small town, she's found, though. Most of the people she ends up shooting know who she is and don't mind their photo being snapped. Those who didn't already know her or her family before Ezra's death definitely did after, as it made the news, and in a town of seven thousand people, it's hard to miss someone.

What's more though, is that she's found that she's actually good at her craft. She generally ends up shooting in Wrights Park at some point during these trips, and it's usually not long before mothers catch her snapping photos of their kids. She tries to start out with her vintage camera first because once the parents catch her snapping photos, they usually want to see what she's captured. The upside is that it's gotten her some sales. The downside is that sometimes they don't want her shooting their kids at all.

Today though, the parks are still relatively empty, so she ends up only taking a few general shots here or there and keeps walking. Before long, she finds herself in the cemetery. Much as she'd like to say that this isn't also a regular occurrence, she isn't there yet. She can't help visiting Ezra's grave regularly. In a weird way, she feels like he's pulling her there-like he misses her just as much as she misses him.

She wanders in slowly at first, snaps a few ominous photos. She spots a woman a few rows in knelt down in front of a grave. Aria can't help herself as her hands move to her camera. The woman can't be much older than her. She's got dark blond, curly hair, and a jean jacket on over a floral print dress. In her hands, she's holding a wrapped bouquet.

The first photo she snaps of the woman has her smiling, though there are tear tracks on her face. There's a pause for both of them then-Aria and the woman-and then the second photo Aria snaps is of the woman looking down at the bouquet she's still holding. The last photo she takes is only out of some sort of desperate synergy within her telling her to capture this moment as the woman's expression falls to pieces while she clings the bouquet tightly to her chest. Aria remembers that pain, knows it well. She feels drawn to the woman, and yet she doesn't want to interrupt. Still, she's rooted to the spot, unable to turn her attention away.

The minutes tick by slowly, and Aria finds herself scrolling through her film as she walks slowly and aimlessly through the cemetery. There are few shots of Hardy's proposal to Spencer that she either forgot about or didn't look very long at that she likes. She knows Spencer will too.

Some five or so minutes later, the woman is standing and brushing her dress off, and Aria is standing mere feet away, though not intentionally. Their gaze catches for a brief woman, and Aria smiles sympathetically at the woman, who is still sniffling. Aria reaches into her jacket and pulls out a package of pocket tissues, pulls one out and hands one to the woman.

"Thanks," the woman murmurs softly.

Aria nods silently, stares at the woman a moment longer. More tears fall from the woman's eyes.

"Are you okay?" Aria asks quietly, genuinely concerned.

The woman glances up at her once more, looks at Aria for a moment, probably wonders what the hell Aria wants to do with her. Instead, after a moment she just nods and mutters 'yes' to Aria before looking away.

Aria should walk away. She knows she should. But she can't, because she knows how it is. She can't make herself leave.

"Your husband?" She asks.

The woman shakes her head, looks up at Aria again, though this time she doesn't look away.

"Fiance," she replies. "How'd you..." Her brow furrowed, perplexed.

Aria gulps.

"My husband," she says with a knot forming in her throat. She tosses her arm back, juts her thumb in a southwest direction. "Over there."

The woman nods, though it's clear to both of them that they're way too young to be grieving this much.

"It's a cruel joke, isn't it?" The woman asks. "How they come along, completely turn our lives upside down, and then they're just...gone."

Aria can't help a haughty chuckle as tears fill her eyes. She nods as she brushes a knuckle on her index finger against her eyelids to wipe away the tears.

"You can definitely say that."

There's a silence between them for a bit, and when the awkwardness starts to sink in, Aria considers walking away. Just as she's about to though, the woman speaks.

"My name's Nikki," the woman says. She glances down at the tissue in her hands for a moment as though she's not sure what to do with it, but then extends her free hand to Aria.

"Aria," she replies as she reaches out and shakes the woman's hand. "Aria Fitz."

Nikki nods. Aria thinks she catches a hint of vague recognition, but she doesn't say anything about it.

"How long has it been for you?" Nikki asks. A beat passes, and then she adds "you seem to be handling this far better than I am."

Aria chuckles again.

"I promise I'm not." Aria passes around to the same side of the grave as Nikki. She glances down at the headstone and then back up at NIkki. "It's been about eight months."

Nikki looks her clear in the eyes, large tears pooling in her emerald green orbs.

"How does it get better than this?" She asks. "Because it's barely been a month, and I just..." A sob escapes her and more tears run down her face. Before Aria can stop herself, she's hugging the other woman, tugging her cameras out of the way so they're not digging into skin. It's an awkward feeling, hugging a stranger like this, but the moment is so genuine and honest that it feels more cathartic than any conversation she's had in the last eight months.

They part after a few minutes, and Nikki smiles nervously at Aria as she tries to pull herself together.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

Aria shakes her head.

"Don't be. In response to your question though...I was sure it never would," Aria admits. "I only made it through the first few months because I was pregnant. After my daughter was born though, I couldn't deal. Sometimes I still can't." She laughs at herself, looks around nonspecifically. "I still find myself here at least three times a week."

"I'm so sorry," Nikki tells her, and Aria knows she means it. They share a knowing smile, and Aria reaches out and squeezes Nikki's forearm gently.

"I just...I don't know how-I **really** don't," Aria says. "But I wanted to tell you that it gets...I don't want to say better, and I _choke _on 'easier'...but somehow you get through it. That constant gut-wrenching, never-gonna-breathe-right-again feeling loosens up a little bit as time passes. You find a way."

"Was your daughter the reason you did?" Nikki asks. When Aria doesn't respond right away, she speaks again. "I'm sorry, if that was too forward-"

"No no," Aria says quickly. She forces a smile. "But, no. After she was born, it got harder. Those first two months, it was easy, because I had to live for her. Afterwards though, I couldn't deal with it. I was sure she was better off without me, and that someone could do a better job because I didn't know how to go on living." She pauses for a moment, inhales a deep breath. "People don't know that this is the hardest kind of heartbreak. Even harder than the first."

Nikki nods. "I completely agree."

The two girls talk for a few minutes longer and Aria mentions that she works at the gallery in town before they head off in opposite directions. Exchanging contact information feels like a bit too much, but she's wary to walk away without any chance at future connection.

When they part, Aria heads further into the cemetery while attempting to refocus her thoughts on what she initially intended to with her afternoon. She checks her battery in her Nikon before checking her photo space. When she looks up again, she stops in her tracks. She's still a few rows away from Ezra's burial site, but she's been there enough that she knows exactly where he is. Rosewood Cemetery isn't big enough for her not to know.

She's stagnant for a few moments, if only because she doesn't know who's standing in front of her husband's grave. She hasn't seen Wes in years, let alone spoken to him, and Ezra's father moved to Paris ages ago.

She starts moving again, though she walks slowly towards the grave. By the time she's close enough to make out the words on the headstone, she knows who's standing in front of it, but she's hesitant to interrupt.

"Damn it, Ezra. You're supposed to be here for all this shit."

"Hey," Aria murmurs as she steps forward nervously. Hardy turns his head and looks straight at her. Aria's heart sinks at the sight of tear tracks on his face.

"Hey," he rasps back as he brushes his forearm over his face, wiping the tears away.

"Rough day?" Aria asks.

Hardy opens his mouth to respond, but the words are dead in his throat. Tears flood his eyes once more and he just nods. Aria steps forward wordlessly and slips her arms between his, hugging him tightly as her eyes fall to the words on Ezra's headstone.

"_At the end of the day, love really did conquer all._

_Beloved husband, father, son and friend." _

A knot is tight in her throat at those words-there's always a knot-but she swallows it down. She can't even count the amount of times she's found herself sobbing on the kitchen floor with a cup of Ezra's favorite coffee that she ordered just because she misses the taste of his kiss, or she's woken up screaming because she's back at that beach again, trying to find him in the water. Without fail, every time that happened, Spencer or Hardy-and sometimes both-were always there to comfort her. They never questioned her tears or told her to pull it together. They just listened and held her hand.

"So what happened?" Aria asks after a few minutes.

Hardy inhales a deep breath.

"I went over to the tux rental place because Spence had a few ideas pulled this morning after we looked online last night," Hardy explains. Aria steps back so that she can see him, but interlaces their fingers together, squeezing tightly. "And the first thing I saw when I got there was the same Calvin Klein suit Ezra wore in your wedding."

Aria gulps, recalling what he'd worn that day. Just the memory makes her heart clench and her stomach do somersaults.

"And then when we were looking at what Spencer had them pull, they asked me if I was interested in looking at groomsmen outfits..." Hardy's voice trails off, and once again tears fill his eyes. "Aria, I don't have a best man. I literally have no clue who to even ask."

Aria exhales a soft breath, looks up at him sympathetically.

"You could always make Harper your best man," she says with a chuckle. Hardy lets out a small laugh.

"I mean, I know she might look a little odd in a tux, and she can't really give a proper speech, but I'm sure she'd steal the show," Aria adds.

Hardy nods, glances down at the headstone again.

"You know what's on my mind ever since that day?" He asks rhetorically. After a minute, he looks back up at Aria. "No one ever knows."

Aria nods.

"We **never **wake up with plans to die," he continues. "And I go to work every day wondering if something's going to happen to me. I mean I stand at the damn train station and just _stare_ at trains when they're coming in...and all I can think about is how we literally have no clue. I hate it so much. We should get to know. We should know when someone is a grenade."

Aria frowns at him. Hardy catches her expression and exhales heavily.

"I didn't mean- Ezra wasn't-...**Death** is a grenade. Especially when it's someone young. And it's like people just..._go off_ and then everything is fucked up," Hardy says.

"That's not _like_ how it is," Aria responds. "That **is** how it is. And it's a twisted joke...but what're you gonna do, y'know? We're all gonna die eventually."

"I just don't understand how we're expected to move on," Hardy says.

Aria shrugs, chews her bottom lip for a moment.

"Have a kid. Make them your best friend," she jokes after a few moments. Hardy looks at her like she's nuts for a few moments, and she's not surprised. In his humorous moments, he insists he's still a child himself, and in no rush to have kids. Even so, the incredulous look on his face fades into a smile, and Aria feels better.

"I know he can't actually** be** here physically," Aria comments, "but you knew him well enough to know what he'd say; you know the answers he'd give you to the questions you have. When I don't have a clue what to do, or what to say, even where to go with everything I'm feeling...I write him a letter."

Hardy raises his eyebrows at her. "Really?"

Aria nods.

"Oh yeah. Sometimes I still send him messages on his facebook just to tell him what I was thought during the day," she explains. "I talk to him when I pray, too."

Hardy nods, though he doesn't say anything further on the subject.

_.,._

_So many questions but i don't ask why_

_So this time i won't even try, hush hush now_

_.,._

It's dark outside by the time Aria returns to her condo with Harper. The baby girl is passed out in her car seat, so Aria puts her straight to bed before heading to the kitchen with her computer and her Nikon. She sets up her laptop on the counter and then removes the memory card from her camera, plugs it into the slot on the computer. Once it registers, she imports the new photos and looks through them. As she starts tagging them, one of the photos stops her. She swears it's older than a few hours.

She docks the photo browser and opens her file explorer, clicks through folders until she finds the one with the right date on it. She opens the folder and scrolls through the photos until she spots the right picture. She opens it in a separate screen and opens her photo browser back up, stares at the photos side-by-side.

"_Are you almost finished?" Ezra whines pathetically beside her. _

_Aria rolls her eyes, snaps another photo with her digital camera. "You act like this is torture to you. We're taking a walk."_

"_It's not the walk that bothers me," Ezra argues. "It's that you stop every three minutes to take pictures of something else. Aria, love, you've already taken more than enough photos to cover Harper's walls for the next fifty years."_

_Aria just chuckles at him, shakes her head, continues taking photos. _

"_Your mother is __**nuts**__, kid. I hope you know that," he says in a determined tone to her swollen stomach. He's knelt in front of her, rubbing her belly in determination to get some movement going._

"_And your father is a wine snob," Aria adds in a voice loud enough that she's sure her unborn baby will her her. _

"_I just hope she's never saddled with you for all of eternity alone," Ezra jokes. Aria lowers her camera to look at him._

"_And why might that be?" She questions. _

_Ezra shrugs. "She'll be certifiable by the time she's five. You'll turn her into a complete flower child."_

_Aria slaps his shoulder, turns her camera on him She snaps a photo of him._

Aria sighs as she lowers the lid to her laptop, breaths in and out in deep breaths. Jokes like that aren't supposed to become reality. But if she wants to dwell on the fact that, she doesn't get the chance. Her front door opens across the room.

"Knock much?" She comments even though she knows it's only one of three people. Spencer passes through the sitting room into the kitchen.

"Sorry. I probably should've called too, hey?"

Aria shrugs. "I don't care that much. What's up?"

"You have to be Hardy's best man," Spencer replies without missing a beat.

Aria's brow furrows. "Umm...what?"

"He said you two talked today-thanks, by the way. Whatever you said..." Spencer pauses, shakes her head. "He's been upset for a while now. Anyway, he said you mentioned what helps you, dealing with losing Ezra and everything. The next thing I know, he's telling me he's poaching you."

"And you didn't throw a royal fit?" Aria asks.

"He told me the day after he proposed that half the reason he waited so long was because he didn't know who would stand up with him," Spencer explains. Aria exhales hard; she knows the feeling because it's the same thing she wonders about attending social occasions now.

"I told him he could have Harper though," Aria comments.

Spencer waves her hand dismissively. "It's fine, really. Melissa finally said she'd be able to come home for the wedding, and we found this really pretty dress-"

"Melissa's going to be eight months pregnant when you get married," Aria argues.

Spencer huffs, runs her hands up over her face into her wildy curly mane. Aria's pretty sure the taller girl is pregnant herself-something about the way Spencer's been lately reminds her of her first trimester-but she's been wary to mention it because she can only imagine what Spencer's reaction to being four months pregnant at her wedding could be, and it doesn't feel like a good one. Still, when Spencer's hands come out of her hair and Aria can see the girl's face again, there are tears in her eyes.

"Spence?" Aria utters her named in a concerned tone. "What is it?" 

Spencer exhales a shaky breath, laughs at herself when a tear falls, and she quickly swipes it away.

"You just don't know," she says softly, carefully, in a blameless tone. "You and Hardy-you live in ground zero. The destruction of Ezra's death **literally** lives inside you. No one can understand the emptiness, the desolation that it leaves-I get that. I know I can't see inside that circle of hell, and I thank **God** every day, that it's not me." She pauses, breathes a deep breath. "**But**, I've watched the person I love the most on this planet suffer _every_ day for the last eight months with this. I've watched him grieve, and then insist he's done with it. I've watched him brush it aside like it's dirt on the floor that he can just wipe away. I've seen him completely _break, _Aria, and I feel **so **much guilt around him too, because I can't imagine what I would feel if it was **you**. Because Alison doesn't compare.

"And it's like a knife twists in my gut, every time I remember he needs Ezra for something. Every time he needs a note from a paper he wrote in college, or he wants an opinion about something to do with his part of the wedding..." Spencer shakes her head, breathes deeply as more tears roll down her face. "Sometimes I feel like I'm standing in actual rubble, trying to pull the both of you out-and I **don't** feel angry, or burdened by it, because I love you both. But I've watched him **need**, Aria. For eight months. And Ezra never coming back, which means he's going to be _needing _for the rest of his life. So _please_, be his best friend. I can share."

Aria inhales a deep breath, tries to quell the knot forming in her throat and keep the tears filling her eyes from falling. She smiles, can't help chuckling.

"I thought you said he needed a best _man_."

"He needs both," Spencer replies. Both girls share a laugh, and then Aria quickly circles the island, rushes over to Spencer, and the two envelope in a tight hug. Aria breathes closes her eyes and breathes deeply, because she's all too aware of the meaning behind Spencer's words, and she's so lucky. She's lucky she has such amazing friends. She's not alone.

"Okay," she says after a well over a minute.

Spencer sighs heavily, relaxes a bit, though the two girls don't separate for another few seconds.

"Great, because the asshole knocked me up, and I've got to figure out if my dress is going to fit, and-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Aria exclaims, waving her hands in a window washing motion. "I was right? I mean- you're, you're___actually _**pregnant**?"

Spencer chuckles, blushes. She glances down at her flat stomach and brushes a hand over her white t-shirt, nodding.

"We were gonna wait to tell anyone," she explains, "but we felt like we should tell you. My parents are going to flip a lid though when they find out Melissa and I both got pregnant before we got married."

"They don't know yet?" Aria asks.

Spencer shakes her head. "And they won't, if I can get away with it. Melissa's just starting to show and she's barely five months, so fingers crossed."

Aria laughs at the taller girl and shakes her head before hugging Spencer again, this time in a congratulatory manner.

"So really, I'm getting off easy now," Aria jokes when they part again. "Melissa will have to deal with you being bridezilla while you're ridiculously hormonal and pregnant. Phew." Aria swipes a hand across her forehead, feigning relief. Spencer just rolls her eyes at the shorter girl with dismissive laugh.

.,.

_we were world's apart, and you see, it was so much easier to be_

_cause now I know we can't have, and it's so unfair_

_.,._

"It was a good day today, babe," Aria murmurs softly as she stares up at her bedroom ceiling. "I have no clue how, but somehow we all got through another one without you."

She inhales a deep breath and glances over at the nightstand. Her iPad is docked in it's case, lit up with the time. It chimes with an alert. She reaches out and grabs it, sitting up a bit more before she opens up the Facebook alert. The app opens and she clicks on the tiny globe at the top of it. She taps the blue-lit notification, and the page loads a minute later to Ezra's page. Aria's heart jumps at the sight of his page-part of her always expects someday she'll log in and he'll have posted something. She slide the page up, revealing a picture of Harper covered in pureed plums and grinning. She'd taken the picture two days before and posted it online.

Below it reads the following.

_Edison Fitzgerald likes this. _

**Edison Fitzgerald **_such a beauty! Can't wait to see her in person! _

Aria exhales a deep breath. She's glad that Ezra's father makes an effort to be a part of his granddaughters life-as much as one can be when living an ocean apart, at least. Still, the older man essentially looks like Ezra a few decades older, and it makes her heart hurt.

Another notification pops up, and this time it's a message. She returns to the top of the page and taps the message icon, opens the new message. It's from Edison.

_Ciao, darling!_

_I'm incredibly late responding to your message a few weeks back about my trip out to Penn., and I sincerely apologize. It's been a busy few weeks at all the software launch conferences. I hope things haven't been too hard in my absence? How is Harper? Is she crawling yet? It seems as though we were just in La Guardia at Christmas only a few days ago. She's grown so much! _

_About my trip-I'm planning to sometime in the next few days. Wrapping up a few meetings here in the next three days, and then entering my flight plan ASAP! Let's plan for a trip to the storage vaults this visit if you have the time so I can give you some of Ezra's things? Let me know if not. _

_Yes, I have spoken with Dianne, Wes, and Hardy separately, recently. Wes is determined in his schooling, still trying to ignore losing his brother. I imagine things might shift this summer. Hopefully he'll drive down for a night next weekend so we might all visit. Dianne is still keeping in touch regularly, yes. I know she doesn't visit, but she tells me she loves the pictures of Harper, and she misses Ezra dearly. Not sure whether she'll ever find it in her pride to visit you, but just keep reminding yourself you're the bigger person, darling. _

_As far as Hardy...conversations with that young man still make my heart hurt for my son, quite honestly. His pain comes across so clearly in his words...it reminds me too much of the first time I lost a close friend. I hope he's getting along alright. _

_I hope I've covered all your questions above. Let me know if I've missed anything. See you soon, darling!_

Aria chuckles, blushes at the nickname. If it weren't for the fact that she knew that Edison had spent the better half of his life-both before and _after_ Ezra's birth-living in Europe, she'd be highly bothered by the fact that he called her 'darling'. As it was though, the man called most people-both male and female-some form a of a pet name, whether it was 'darling', 'sweetie', 'honey', or some over variation of the words.

She sends back a message to let him know she got his, and then turns her iPad off and settles it back on her nightstand. She glances back up at the ceiling.

"Tell me everything is going to be okay. Please?" She murmurs softly. Silence.

"Fine, be that way," she mutters. She rolls over onto her side and turns the light off on the nightstand, tugs her blankets up. Sleep comes swiftly.


End file.
